


Raisons d'être

by rmc28



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Conversations, Dialogue Heavy, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-29
Updated: 2016-07-29
Packaged: 2018-06-05 18:22:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 3,572
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6716098
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rmc28/pseuds/rmc28
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Four conversations Maria had about joining SHIELD, and one that wasn't.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Peggy and Maria

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [There Is No In-Between (the Fight The Good Fight remix)](https://archiveofourown.org/works/6578659) by [tielan](https://archiveofourown.org/users/tielan/pseuds/tielan). 



Maria looked steadily across the table at the woman who had just offered her a job. Her last sentence echoed in Maria's head: _Considering I founded SHIELD, Miss Hill, I believe I have the authority to recruit you_. 

Maria didn't know SHIELD, had never heard of it before this hectic few days in Madripoor, but the agents she'd met had none of the uncertainty of a new organisation settling into its mission. More like, all of the confidence-bordering-arrogance that came from knowing they were part of something large, powerful and established. Maria recognised that, had known it herself once.

If nothing else, this woman must have been surprisingly young when she founded it. That suggested a story Maria might want to hear. But she wanted to know other things more. SHIELD and its founder wanted her, _with us, rather than against us_. Did she want them?

"Why did you found it?" she said. 

Her interrogator/interviewer looked coolly back at her. "To protect people. The acronym is a deliberate hint there. So again, would you like to know us better?"

"I don't know yet. Why do you want me?" She drew a breath. "What will you do with me?"

The older woman sat up slightly straighter. "Straight to the point I see. I - we - want you, because of your rather direct and impressive example here of what you can do." She glanced down at the open laptop in front of her. "Your military record is also impressive, although perhaps not in the way your superiors intended." Of course they had her military record by now.

"What we'll do with you? We'll put you in the best place to make use of your ..." another pause, another significant glance at the laptop. ".. considerable abilities to get done what needs doing."

"To protect people?" Maria pressed the point.

"Yes," responded her interviewer, unhesitating, looking Maria straight in the eye. "Miss Hill, I'm not asking you to sign your life away this instant. You'll go through intake training and probation like any other recruit; and like any other recruit you'll have the chance to leave if you - or we - think you're not suited to SHIELD at the end of probation." She smiled suddenly, fiercely. "But I think you'll find you are very well suited."

Just then the door swung open and in walked the black politico she'd seen earlier, with the same top-predator stride she'd noted then.

"Did she say yes yet, Carter?" 

Maria's interviewer - Carter? - caught Maria's eye in what looked surprisingly like amused exasperation. The man continued around the table to Maria, who found herself rising to her feet automatically. He smiled, held out a hand.

"Nick Fury, director of SHIELD. Are you ready to be part of something bigger, Miss Hill?"


	2. Maria and Sharon

Maria met Agent 13 in training, and at first merely noted her as one of the teaching agents that didn't seem to hold Madripoor against her. There were enough that did. After Maria had passed probation, it was Agent 13 who made friendly overtures on one of their frequent meetings in the base gym. These turned into meals together after their workouts, became "call me Sharon please, Agent", "then I'm Maria", became a strong working friendship that Maria knew was all too rare, and therefore precious.

When Maria moved into Ops Logistics, she made another friend: Barton proved a pleasure to work with, competent, occasionally brilliant and directing all hostility at the enemy. But Maria was truly delighted when Sharon was rotated back into the field from training. They proved to work together well, and were rewarded by being teamed up more often.

Sometimes, even their teamwork and skill and Maria's paranoia ("I like to call it thoroughness") in planning, wasn't enough. After one especially awful op, and a scathing lessons-learned meeting with Hand, they both got rather drunker than could be considered wise. Somehow the subject came round to the manner of their joining SHIELD

"I enlisted as soon as I could," said Sharon, listing gently against Maria's shoulder, one hand moving to emphasise her words.

"Why?" asked Maria, genuinely interested. Sharon had always carefully avoided the topic of Before SHIELD and it wasn't like Maria wanted to dwell on her past before joining the agency.

"I know it's cliche, but I wanted to serve," enunciated Sharon carefully. "I do serve. I think we make the world safer, and I want to be part of that." Sharon looked Maria in the eye, painfully sincere. All Maria could do was nod and make an encouraging noise.

"And I had ..." a pause, a flicker of expression across Sharon's face that Maria could't read, "a ... family member who set a high standard to live up to."

Maria looked at the suddenly-closed expression on her friend's face. "You don't want to expand on that do you?"

"Nope," responded Sharon, fake-cheerily. "But," she continued, serious again, "I'm good at what I do, I know my own worth. You're good too, Maria, when are you applying for the leadership track?"

Maria was pretty sure she gaped in surprise at Sharon for far too long. She'd been thinking about it, sure, but she wasn't yet sure. Sharon did that annoying thing of reading her expressions even when drunk.

"No room for false modesty here, Maria. You should do it." Maria managed a grimace and a shrug and reached for the wine glass again.

"Anyway," said Sharon, all painful sincerity again. "It's all very well, the excitement and the guns and the clever tech, but we need to remember why we're doing it," emphasising the last few words with her hands. "You get that, Maria, you always have done, that's part of why ... Director Carter wanted to recruit you." Sharon reached for her own glass again.

"How do you know that?" asked Maria, suddenly suspicious even through the haze of wine.

"I did do some of your entry evaluation, _Agent_ Hill," said Sharon, grinning back at her. "Now, about your leadership track ..."

[Maria let Sharon change the subject. Years later, Maria visited Peggy Carter in her nursing home and heard a very familiar voice say "Aunt Peggy" just as she entered the room. In front of Peggy, she contented herself with just a swiftly raised eyebrow in response to Sharon's chin-up defiance, but she made sure they both left the room together. 

Alone in the elevator, not looking at Sharon, she said quietly "That was one hell of a high standard to live up to, Sharon."

"I don't tell _anyone_ ," said Sharon. "I didn't want people to think I was coasting on her reputation, I wanted to build my own."

"That, I can understand," said Maria, with a quick sideways glance, briefly meeting Sharon's eyes.

"Are we good, Maria?"

"We're good. Hard to be friends in our line of work if we got upset over every secret we kept."]


	3. Maria and Natasha

Maria kept her voice even, with a struggle. "Barton did what?"

Coulson stood there in front of her, being as annoyingly calm and unflappable as ever. "He says she should have a second chance. He says she was expecting to die. He says he's not in the business of killing child soldiers."

"She's not a child."

"She's not much more than a child now; she was certainly a child when they started training her."

"The Black Widow program doesn't let them be children." And there was knowledge she'd rather not have had. But that was her job, to know about the horrors in order to protect others from them.

"Is that why you approved the kill order?" asked Coulson, mild as ever.

"I approved it because of the things she's done and is content to keep doing. I don't recall you disagreeing."

"Barton says she's ready to change."

"And you believe him, over the evidence." Maria cast a glance towards the Romanoff dossier on her desk, knowing Coulson would follow her meaning.

"Barton sees more than most people," was all his reply. Maria gritted her teeth, knowing he wasn't wrong.

 

Maria walked into the interrogation room, where the Widow was shackled to one of the two chairs bolted to the floor - the only pieces of furniture in the room. The Widow lifted her head and met Maria's eyes expressionlessly as she walked from the door to the remaining chair, a carefully chosen distance out of reach but close enough for conversation. Maria carried nothing, wore nothing easily removed and was deliberately weaponless. She was putting her trust in Coulson and May watching through the two-way (but not bulletproof) mirror. She would rather have had Barton, but couldn't trust him in this. Not this time.

As Maria sat down, the Widow's expression shifts into a small amused smirk. "I didn't realise I rated the management."

"What makes you think you do?" asked Maria calmly.

"Please," said the Widow, amusement shading to disdain. "You're Nick Fury's right hand woman. Everyone knows who you are, for a small and select definition of everyone. Some of them even want you dead."

Maria didn't flinch, refused to show fear. "Is that why you are here?"

A pause, a return to blank expressionlessness. "No."

"Why are you here?"

"Ask Barton, he brought me."

"I'm asking you."

The Widow allowed herself to look bored. "It seemed possibly more interesting than the alternative. I can always get that later anyway."

"More interesting than dying?" Maria kept her voice calm, her demeanour pleasant, while her memory replayed all the searches and scans that had been carried out on the Widow before they reached this point; searches and scans with which the Widow had silently complied.

"Possibly." The amused look was back again. 

"Do you want to die?"

The Widow smiled broadly. "Is that concern, assistant director? Should I flutter my eyelashes and ... beg for your mercy?" Her voice dropped on the word beg, her smile and posture all lasciviousness.

Maria allowed her eyebrows to rise. "You're being remarkably obvious given your reputation for subtle seduction."

"Perhaps I'm ... desperate," responded the Widow, the sultriness still there but dialled down considerably. Because she could tell it wasn't working, or because she couldn't be bothered any more? Or both?

"Desperate to die?" asked Maria, still calm, still businesslike.

The Widow shifted her demeanour back to businesslike too. "Why do you care?" she said lightly.

"Why are you here?" asked Maria again.

"Ask Barton," came the answer, all expression gone again.

"I'm asking you," still calm, still patient.

"You said that before."

"So did you."

Maria sat back a little and let the silence sit for a bit. Not that a Black Widow was likely to be intimidated by mere silence. Indeed, she just sat quietly, composed, that small smirk slowly reappearing as the silence stretched.

Maria tried again. "What do you want, Ms Romanoff?" Had the use of her name got a tiny reaction there?

"Does it matter what I want?"

"Barton thinks it does."

A tiny pause, a flicker in expression, then the smile widened. "Perhaps I seduced him."

"Did you?"

Silence.

"What do you think Agent Barton offered you, Ms Romanoff?"

More silence, and another lascivious smile, rather dimmer than before.

"Really," said Maria flatly. 

The Widow's smile reverted to that tiny smirk, which Maria was not going to let annoy her. 

"Why do you think I am here, Ms Romanoff?"

The Widow raised her eyebrows. "To go through the motions. It's not like you can break me through interrogation. When you fail you'll have to reinstate the kill order and get someone else to do it if Barton still refuses." Still speaking lightly and pleasantly, but with absolutely certainty.

"Is that what you want, Ms Romanoff?"

Silence.

Maria raised her voice slightly. "Open the video link to Barton please." Part of the one-way mirror lit up with a view of Barton sitting in a holding cell, shackled by one ankle to the wall, looking supremely relaxed. Maria was not going to let that annoy her either. The Widow's gaze flickered to him, back to Maria, eyes slightly widened. "He's been watching our conversation," Maria confirmed.

"Don't be an idiot, Romanoff," said Barton cheerfully. The Widow looked up and met his eyes briefly in the video link, then looked back towards Maria.

Maria looked towards the screen, still tracking the Widow in her peripheral vision.

"What did you offer her, Barton?"

He replied without taking his eyes from the Widow. "A second chance."

"Meaning?" pressed Maria.

"A chance to atone, to wipe the ledger clean," said Barton, slowly and clearly.

The words hung in the air for a long time before the Widow spoke, very quietly. "There's a lot of red in my ledger."

"We know," said Maria, hearing Barton's echo overlap her words. She leaned forward slightly. "It's a lot of work to wipe it out. We've got work for you, if you want it."

"How can you trust me?" said the Widow, still very quiet.

"We can't, yet. We won't, for a while. You'll have to earn it." Maria put reassurance into her tone.

"At least you have some sense," said the Widow, smiling very faintly - a smile this time, not a smirk.

"Romanoff," said Barton imperatively. "Do you want to join SHIELD?"

A long drawn out pause. Then: "Yes."


	4. Maria and Steve

When Steve came back from the official opening of the Smithsonian exhibition, Maria took one look at him and steered him into her office and onto the couch she kept there. Then she made two brief calls, one to summon Natasha, and the other sending her assistant out to Steve's favourite bakery. Alcohol might not work on the supersoldier, but chocolate cake might help.

"I look that bad, huh?" said Steve wearily when she turned back to him.

"Yes," she said bluntly as she sat in the chair opposite him. "Was it that bad?"

"It was ... really strange," he said. "All those photos, all those careful historical notes. The footage of Bucky, and Peggy, and the others, still just the way I remember them rather than ..." he trailed off, gulped suddenly and looked down at the floor. Maria looked away feeling hideously awkward, unable to do more than give him the illusion of some privacy. 

She found herself thinking about Sharon's reports, that all Steve did was work, work out, visit Peggy, and sleep. At work he got on well enough with STRIKE but didn't seem close to any of them. His strongest friendships seemed to be with Clint, Natasha, Nick and herself. Maria wished Clint wasn't out of country; he seemed to have the best rapport with Steve of any of them. 

Steve cleared his throat quietly. "It's really odd seeing Peggy getting older," he said. "I think I'm used to how she is now, but they had some interview footage ... it makes me realise how much I missed."

Maria met his eyes again and hoped her effort at a smile was more convincing than his. Then he said "I heard she recruited you, after some mess in ... Madripoor? Tell me about it?" 

"You want Peggy stories?" asked Maria, aiming for a mildly teasing note.

"Yes," Steve replied, a bit too emphatically for comfort. But he seemed more on an even keel again, and she was willing to pretend to be convinced. She retold the story, making sure to highlight her own youth and inexperience, and Peggy's imposing presence.

"... she said SHIELD wanted me with us rather than against us. I thought that about you too," Maria said. As she spoke, her office door opened quietly and in slipped Natasha with a large cake box. Steve didn't turn around to see who it was, intent on Maria's words.

"When you interviewed me about joining SHIELD?" asked Steve.

"Yes," confirmed Maria. "It's probably even more true now we've trained you up in modern combat skills."

"Definitely," agreed Natasha, dropping down onto the couch next to Steve, and opening up the box. Maria saw Steve's quick, grateful smile at Natasha as he took a slice from her. Then he looked back at her.

"You still believe in protecting people?" he asked, with that sudden intensity that Maria never got used to. Maria was very conscious of Natasha watching, but it wasn't like she would be telling Natasha anything new. Natasha knew her all too well already.

"Always," said Maria. It was worth the look from Natasha to see the way Steve relaxed again, reassured.


	5. Pepper and Maria

Maria smiled and nodded and said all the right things in the Stark HR interview about her experience as "COO of a large multinational organisation". Everyone politely went along with the anonymity as though the SHIELD data dump wasn't out there with her name and career history for all to read. Maria remembered Natasha saying "everyone knows who you are". Now, everyone really did.

The HR interview wound down, but the lie detector leads were still on when Pepper Potts walked in the room. She dismissed the interview panel with a nod, before taking a seat facing Maria. She did not look friendly.

"Why are you here, Ms Hill?"

"You do know lie detectors don't work, Ms Potts?" asked Maria. Pepper didn't react, which in itself confirmed what she'd guessed when the leads first went on. "It's cover for JARVIS monitoring my vitals rather more thoroughly isn't it?"

"And that right there is the problem, Ms Hill. You know rather more about SI than I am comfortable with, especially given the manner of your learning it."

"You mean because of SHIELD?"

"Because your people spied on us for SHIELD ... or Hydra, given it seems they were the same," said Pepper, still not friendly.

"I'm not Hydra," said Maria mildly.

"Not as far as we know."

"You know I helped bring them down."

"After apparently failing to notice them despite your position in the organisation." Maria winced. She and Nick had noticed, eventually, but far, far too late. Pepper continued. "Either you're not Hydra or you're very very good. I don't know you but Phil spoke well of you." Maria fiercely controlled her reaction to that praise. As far as Pepper Potts and most of the world were concerned Phil was still dead, and she could not let Stark's AI figure out that might not be the case.

".. and Tony says Steve is convinced of your loyalty." Maria allowed herself to react to _that_ second-hand praise with a brief warm rush of gratitude. "Even if Tony thinks Steve is too trusting of everyone, let alone possible Hydra deep cover agents."

Maria met Pepper's eyes coolly. "If I was a Hydra agent, Steve Rogers would be dead, along with Natasha Romanoff and Sam Wilson, and there would still be three helicarriers in the sky." She left unspoken _and you and Tony Stark would be dead too, along with a couple of million others_ , but she was certain Pepper caught the implication.

"There is that," conceded Pepper. "So, why are you here?"

Maria gave her a corporate smile. "Because I'm very good at what I do, and you can use me to make SI even better than it already is." Pepper gave her an unimpressed look. "And because Tony Stark does know me. If the rumours are true that he's gathering the rest of the Avengers here, I would also be your best option for running the Avengers Initiative instead."

"Not as well?" inquired Pepper.

"There are limits to my capacity, Ms Potts. I can make a success of SI or the Avengers, not both."

"Again, why do you want to?"

"I disagreed with Nick Fury about the Avengers," said Maria calmly. That video of her confrontation with the WSC was also in the SHIELD data dump. Everyone knew she had disagreed about the Avengers. "Against all my expectations, they were what we needed. If it weren't for Mr Stark, this city wouldn't be here. If it weren't for Steve, Natasha and the unexpected Mr Wilson, we'd all be saying Hail Hydra or dead." She and Pepper would both have been dead.

"Go on," said Pepper, neither encouraging nor hostile.

"I don't want to believe in heroes." said Maria. She took a breath and decided to go for the sincere truth. "I'd rather believe in ordinary humans doing the right thing." That got her a long considering look, with less cynicism than she had expected. She took another breath. "But if we're going to have a privately-run superhero team ..."

"Which I can neither confirm or deny," interjected Pepper drily.

"... I want to make sure it's done properly, to continue with the ideals SHIELD was founded with. Hydra may have corrupted it later, but those ideals are still worth something. You even have Steve Rogers to ensure we stick to them."

Pepper gave her another long, considering look. Maria put the corporate smile back on again. "Or, if there's no such team being assembled, I can just help make SI even greater than it already is. That also helps ordinary humans doing the right thing." There was the tiniest suggestion of amusement on Pepper's face at that and Maria began to believe she wasn't going to be thrown out the door.

Before Pepper could speak again, the door swung open to admit Tony Stark, sleeves rolled up and hands fiddling with something small, metallic and unidentifiable. "Did she say yes yet, Potts?" 

Pepper's exasperated look was a lot less amused than Peggy's had been, all those years ago. Maria didn't even bother trying to hide her laughter or relief.


End file.
